Re:Vision: The Key to Transforming Your Church

by Aubrey Malphurs

culture supplies the beliefs and values that direct a strategy. Yes, culture is that important.

he will need to read that preexisting culture to understand it and impact it. We call it exegeting the culture. Just as we exegete the Scriptures to understand what they mean, so we must exegete the church to understand its culture and ultimately lead it to change and re-envision itself. In this situation pastors function not as cultural custodians but as culture sculptors. They aren’t there to simply maintain the preexisting culture but to shape and change it for the better.

Pastors have to exegete the culture of the church, then find ways to reshape the culture

Culture was not the result of the fall but an intrinsic part of the everyday lives of Adam and Eve. You can find the culture apple in the Garden (and it’s not the forbidden fruit mentioned in Gen. 3:2–3). God embedded in Adam a number of beliefs and values as found in Genesis 2. One belief is that a man should not be alone but needs a helper (wife) to complete him (v. 18). When God created Eve (a man’s wife), he taught Adam that her role was to be man’s helper (vv. 20–22). And as Adam acted on these two core beliefs, they became values that manifest themselves outwardly as part of culture.

God has given us culture since the beginning, Adam and Eve and all of us since then warp3d anddistorted God's culture

CULTURE IS NOT INDEPENDENT OF THE GODHEAD The Godhead operated in a cultural context just as Adam and Eve did. In Genesis 1–2 it was the Godhead or Triune God whose creative acts established various beliefs that when acted on became values that resulted from their creative thought and planning (see Acts 4:24). Therefore we see that the Godhead related to and operated in a cultural context.

CULTURE IS NOT TEMPORAL The biblical evidence indicates that culture will be an intrinsic part of our future in heaven. For example, Revelation 7:9–10 clearly reveals that people’s cultural distinctives, which are unique expressions of their beliefs and values, such as ethnicity and language, w...

CULTURE IS NOT AL...

Sin pervaded everything, including culture (Gen. 3:14–19; 6:5). The result was that it wreaked havoc on people’s beliefs that, in turn, impacted their values.

CULTURE IS NOT AN END IN ITSELF Culture itself is not an end but a means to an end. Paul indicates this in Romans 14:14 where he refers to food, a vital aspect of culture, as not unclean in itself. But if a person believes that a certain food is unclean, then to that person it is. Thus it can be used for good or bad, depending on the individual.

a church’s congregational culture is its unique expression of the interaction of its shared beliefs and values, which explain its behavior in general and display its unique expression of its shared values and beliefs.

a church’s organizational culture is its unique outward expression of its shared beliefs and values.

when you hear the word culture, do not go blank, picture an apple. We will refer to it as a culture apple. Reading a congregation’s culture is like peeling back and examining the layers of an apple. Our culture apple consists of three layers.

LAYER 1: THE APPLE’S SKIN—THE CHURCH’S OUTWARD BEHAVIOR

This is what you experience through your senses—what you see and hear when you visit a church—its skin or outward expression of itself. This outward expression consists of the church’s physical presence: its facilities, parking lot, grounds, and so forth. It also includes such things as the language or languages you hear spoken (English, Spanish, or Asian), clothing (formal or casual), symbols (the cross), rituals (the public reading of Scripture), ordinances (baptism or the taking of communion), music (traditional or contemporary), even technology (high- or low-tech). And these are also the very things that make the church unique. While the church may, like other churches, conduct traditional or contemporary worship, its worship will not be the same as that of other churches. What is unique about your church’s outward expression?

Congregational culture has an important second layer, which consists of the church’s core values. Churches are behavior-expressed but values-driven. The values explain the behavior that can be seen. While visiting a church, you may observe a contemporary band playing contemporary Christian music. This outward expression announces that the church values contemporary Christian music and worship. You will discover also what the church does not value.

But there is more to an apple than its flesh. It has a core. And while you would not want to eat the core, you must realize that there would be no flesh without the core. The core comes first and produces the flesh. Also the core contains seeds that can ensure, if they are healthy, that there will be a good supply of apples for the future.

belief that almost all Christian churches share is evangelism. However, if it doesn’t do evangelism, then it remains a belief and not a value and does not show up at the skin or outside layer. If, on the other hand, it believes in and actually does evangelism, evangelism is a value of the church that will express itself at the outside layer. At this church you will see or hear about people sharing their faith with the lost.

we can address the kind of envisioning or re-envisioning leader who can lead the church through change. We will refer to him as a re-envisioning pastor or as a culture sculptor.

How does a culture sculptor lead an established church to change its culture? Our answer is threefold and will examine his character qualifications, his spiritual qualifications, and his divine design, based on our exploration. THE CHANGE PERSONNEL Character Qualifications Spiritual Qualifications Divine Design

What the change pastor looks like

1 Timothy 3:1–7 and Titus 1:5–9 Paul spells out the specific character qualifications for first-century house church pastors who were called elders.

(1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1). We have listed these qualifications in appendix I, Character Assessment for Leadership. The list identifies and explains twenty-two character qualifications in an assessment format that you can use to evaluate your qualifications for leadership. The envisioning leader who desires to lead his church in creating and shaping a culture for change must be sure to meet these qualifications and characteristics. While none of us is perfect, we must be comfortable with where we are. This does not mean that we do not need to work on some of them. That will always be the case. When we recognize what is lacking, we must be sure to work on improvement.

Character assessment for leadership

spiritual qualifications. Paul indicates this in Galatians 5, where he says that a spiritual person is one who keeps in step with the Spirit (v. 25). In verses 22–23, he provides us with a list that characterizes those who keep in step with the Spirit. He says they possess the following: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

when people look at us, they should see the fruit of the Spirit or Christ.

believer’s divine design. It consists of one’s natural and spiritual gifts, passion, and temperament. The question we want to address in the following is, What is the re-envisioning pastor’s divine design? Is the re-envisioning pastor wired differently than non–re-envisioning pastors?

In my exploration of turnaround pastors, I (Gordon) discovered that the leader’s spiritual gifts were not a deciding factor in leading a church to re-envision itself. We believe there are gifts that can be helpful but are not essential, such as leadership, teaching, faith, exhortation, preaching, and evangelism.

we believe that passion can make some difference in a turnaround. We define passion as what one cares deeply or feels strongly about. We believe, as does church consultant Lyle Schaller, that passion is critical to any pastor’s ministry. Schaller writes, “I think passion is the critical variable. It has taken me a long time to come around to that, but if a pastor does not have a passion for the mission, you can forget the rest. I would insist that the number one quality for a leader is passion.”[1]

****** Number one quality for turnaround pastor is passion

They are convinced that they can make a difference in difficult situations that require a turnaround.

we note that those pastors who could effectively re-envision churches scored as DIs, IDs, Ds, or Is on the DISC and they scored as ESTJ, ENFP, ESFJ, or ISTJ on the MBTI. We believe that ENTJs, by nature of their strong intuitive abilities, could have the same results.

THE CHANGE PROCESS Step 1: Read the culture Step 2: Thaw the culture Step 3: Transition the culture to a new level Step 4: Reform the new culture at the new level

Change process in the culture

exegeting your culture, which involves observation, interpretation, and application.

what would you see if you visited the church? Do people carry their Bibles? Do they laugh and seem to enjoy one another’s company? Do they pray and worship together?

How are we to interpret our observations? The answer is found in uncovering both the church’s core values and core beliefs that make up the flesh and core of the church. The church’s core values and beliefs will influence what is seen on the outside.

That is a reflection of the application of his values (in this case, creativity).

Let’s return to our block of ice metaphor. Now that we have identified the ice, what do we have to do to melt it? We have three suggestions.

One way to initiate change is to inflict emotional pain. Often medical doctors have to hurt people to heal them. The same goes for our churches. You have to get their attention, and a good way is to cause them pain or discomfort. You see, they have become too comfortable while immersed in the status quo. Consultant Lyle Schaller calls it rubbing raw the wounds of discontent. Bill Hybels says much the same when he writes, “Leaders move people from here to there. . . . The first play is not to make ‘there’ sound wonderful. The first play is to make ‘here’ sound awful.”[2] If you make “there” look good and don’t make “now” seem awful, “now” will hang around and compete constantly with “there” for people’s allegiance.

Initiate change by inflicting pain as a physician has to inflict pain to heal, inflicting discomfort to change the status quo to cause change

So how do you “rub raw the wounds of discontent”? How do you make “here” seem awful? The answer is to tell the people the truth. Most churches are in steep decline, sliding quickly toward an early funeral; your job is to constantly remind the people of this.

Reminding people things are awful sliding toward death of church

use a tool we call Sixteen Make-or-Break Questions. You will find a copy of it in appendix J. Turn to it and give it a quick read to see how it works. So far, we have not had a church that is not silenced by this tool. It is articulated in such a way that most churches realize that while they have made a lot of progress, they have some more work to do.

16 questions to assess a church is in decline

five possible “divine interruptions” that you can use to thaw out the church culture. A crisis such as a fire or the untimely death of the pastor or some other prominent person in the church. A change of pastors. A new pastor has the opportunity to cast a new and exciting vision for the future. A renewal of the pastor. Something happens in your life that motivates you to seek God anew and pursue his vision for the church. A renewal of the lay leadership. One pastor in Dallas took his lay leaders to one of Rick Warren’s conferences at Saddleback. When they returned, the men were challenged and ready to attempt great things for God. The expertise of a church consultant or mentor. These people can come into the pastor’s life and give him needed wisdom and advice—especially if he is facing a crossroads in his ministry.

Eyes for opportunity to change

Step 3: Transition the Culture to a New Level When you reach step 3, you may find yourself tempted to stop for a while and catch your breath. This would be a mistake. To pause now could be disastrous. The reason is that there are always forces in every church that will attempt to keep things where they are—to preserve the status quo. They are like barnacles on the side of a boat; they serve no purpose but to slow things down. At this point you need to pursue three things. Determine the new culture. The exegetical shaping question here is not what do you see, but what should you see? What does a spiritually mature church look like? What should it mean? What are your actual biblical core values that arise from good beliefs? There should be at least five: worship, fellowship, biblical instruction, service, and evangelism. What difference should it make? The answer is all the difference in the world as you take the gospel to the world.

Consolidate and transition, move straight to the next step

Once you have determined your new culture, you will need to implement it. You accomplish this by recruiting a strategic implementation team, consisting of no more than nine key leaders in the church. Next, use this team to discover your core values and develop your mission and vision statements (to make disciples and what that looks like), along with a strategy to implement them in the church. The strategy will address the following: Community outreach Disciple making Congregational mobilization Staffing Raising the finances necessary to support the ministry and pay the bills. My book Advanced Strategic Planning[3] would prove immensely helpful in accomplishing this.

Imp!ement the new culture with the team to implement strategy and begin to execute through the church

The team would take responsibility for seeing that the church follows through with culture development. The team would draft a leader who would report directly to the pastor, and the pastor would report to any governance board (elders or deacons), should the church have such a board. This is for accountability. The team would consist of no more than nine people who would embrace and share the implementation of the goals and objectives of the group. Each person on the team would adopt and be working on several of these goals with one or two others. The job of the team leader is to coordinate the work of the team, check with the team members, troubleshoot, and make sure the goals are being accomplished.

Impelement team appoints a leader who reports to the pastor, to not just implement first level but to keep changing and adapting

A third team could be a creativity and innovation team with the primary objective of helping the church recognize and adapt quickly to cultural change. Here are some optional goals of such a team: Determine if the church keeps up with and relates well to the culture in its community. Interview people within and outside the congregation and ask what the church is doing that’s become outdated and irrelevant. (What’s not changed in the last five years?) Develop and apply a biblical theology of change. Constantly challenge the church’s views and assumptions about what is true about your community, your congregation, your ministries, your leaders, and the way you do things inside your organization. Take nothing for granted. Develop a process for generating hundreds of new, strategic ministry ideas each year (team and staff brainstorming sessions, for example). Gain congregational permission to experiment with new things. (This means they and you will have to become comfortable with failure. It’s far better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all.) Consider and evaluate creative and innovative ideas from the congregation and others. Identify innovative and creative churches in America and discover what they are doing and how that may help you in your ministry. Allocate funds in the budget to fund new ideas (recommend 1–5 percent of the ministries budget). Read books and articles on creativity and innovation (for example, check out the magazine Fast Company) and on...

Issues to be addressed by sub committees

must be aware that there will always be a group of people in the church who will want to return the church to its “good ole days,” better known as the status quo.

Others are never adopters who refuse to change and who will complain and whine. Their attitude will be “my way or the highway!” You don’t have to tolerate these people and you may want to encourage them to find a church frozen in the status quo where perhaps they can be happy.

For those who will not move ahead in the new culrure should be invited to leave